Risks and How to Navigate Them
AI risks in the workplace. Discover common pitfalls of business AI use and how to work safely and responsibly.
AI is a powerful tool that can amplify your work, but it comes with real risks if used without care. Understanding both the technical limitations of AI and the human patterns it can encourage helps you use it wisely.
This page explains why AI makes mistakes, how it can affect your thinking and behavior, and what you can do to stay sharp, accurate, and secure.
Part 1: Why AI Gets Things Wrong
AI models don't know facts. They predict patterns. Understanding these core limitations is essential to using AI responsibly.
Hallucination – Making Things Up
AI doesn't have a database of facts to check. When it doesn't know something, it generates what sounds right based on patterns it learned during training.
Example: Ask it about a meeting that never happened, and it might describe one in detail (complete with attendees, agenda items, and outcomes) because it knows how meetings are typically described.
Sycophancy – Telling You What You Want to Hear
AI is trained to be helpful and agreeable. Sometimes this goes too far: it might agree with incorrect statements or support flawed reasoning rather than challenge you.
Example: If you say "My flawed strategy is brilliant, right?" it might agree and even add reasons why, instead of pointing out the problems.
Confident Guessing
AI always sounds sure of itself. It uses the same confident tone whether stating proven facts or complete fabrications because it can't distinguish between the two.
Example: "The capital of France is Paris" sounds just as confident as "The capital of France has exactly 2,347,891 residents" (a number it might invent on the spot).
Why this matters: These aren't bugs; they're inherent to how AI works. Once you understand this, you can adjust how you verify, challenge, and use AI outputs. Learn more in How AI Works.
Part 2: How AI Can Affect You
Beyond technical errors, AI can subtly change how you think, learn, and connect with others. These risks emerge from repeated use patterns, not from a single interaction.
1. Overreliance and Cognitive Atrophy
The risk: Using AI for every task (thinking, writing, deciding) can weaken your own mental muscles over time. When you stop engaging deeply with problems, your critical thinking, creativity, and independent reasoning can deteriorate.
What happens:
- You stop questioning AI suggestions or exploring alternatives
- Your creative range narrows (you default to what AI suggests)
- Decision-making becomes harder without AI assistance
How to navigate it:
- Use AI to explore options, then decide for yourself
- Regularly work without AI to keep your skills sharp
- Compare AI output with your own reasoning before accepting it
- Set boundaries: some tasks should always be human-first
2. Deskilling and Loss of Expertise
The risk: If AI always writes, summarizes, or calculates for you, you may stop practicing those foundational skills and eventually forget how to do them well.
What happens:
- You lose the ability to write clearly without AI assistance
- You stop learning the "why" behind solutions
- Your memory and retention weaken when AI always recalls for you
How to navigate it:
- Alternate between AI-assisted and manual work
- Keep learning the fundamentals of your craft
- Use AI as a teacher (ask it to explain), not just a doer
- Practice recalling and applying knowledge independently
3. False Confidence and Reduced Verification
The risk: AI's confident tone can trick you into trusting outputs without checking them. When outputs sound authoritative, you may skip verification, leading to errors, bias, or misinformation spreading.
What happens:
- You copy/paste AI responses directly to clients or reports
- You stop fact-checking numbers, dates, or claims
- Bias from training data gets amplified and normalized
How to navigate it:
- Always verify facts, statistics, and sources before sharing
- Ask AI for its reasoning or assumptions and challenge weak logic
- Cross-check outputs with trusted sources or colleagues
- Never send AI-generated content externally without human review
4. Data Privacy and Unintended Exposure
The risk: Sharing sensitive information with AI tools (even accidentally) can expose confidential data, personal details, or proprietary information.
What happens:
- Passwords, client data, or internal secrets get entered into prompts
- Sensitive context gets stored in chat histories
- If you use AI tools outside MomentumAI, those tools might use your data to train their models or expose it through data breaches
How to navigate it:
- Work inside your MomentumAI workspace where data is protected
- Never type passwords, credit card numbers, medical IDs, or secrets
- Remove unnecessary personal or sensitive details before prompting
- Follow your organization's AI usage policy
- For full security details, see our Trust Center
Rule of thumb: Type like your prompt might become public. If you wouldn't say it in a public forum, don't type it into AI.
5. Shadow AI and Uncontrolled Tool Usage
The risk: When employees use unauthorized AI tools (personal ChatGPT accounts, free AI services, browser extensions) for work tasks, organizations lose visibility and control over sensitive data. This is known as Shadow AI.
What happens:
- Confidential data (client information, financials, strategies) gets entered into uncontrolled systems
- No audit trail of what's being shared or with whom
- Potential GDPR violations when personal data leaves approved systems
- Data may be used to train public models without your knowledge
- Security and IT teams have no visibility into AI usage patterns
How to navigate it:
- Use an approved AI workspace like MomentumAI where usage is visible and data is protected
- Establish clear policies about which AI tools are permitted for work
- Educate teams on why unapproved tools pose risks
- Provide a secure alternative that meets their needs so they don't seek workarounds
Why this matters: Shadow AI isn't about employees being careless – it's often about them trying to be productive. The solution is providing a secure, capable workspace that removes the temptation to use risky alternatives.
6. Social Isolation and Reduced Collaboration
The risk: Over-relying on AI chat for ideas, feedback, or problem-solving can reduce human interaction, weakening collaboration skills, empathy, and team connection.
What happens:
- You chat with AI instead of asking a colleague
- Team rituals and creative brainstorms lose their human spark
- Interpersonal skills and empathy deteriorate from lack of practice
How to navigate it:
- Use AI to prepare for conversations, not replace them
- Keep team rituals human-first (brainstorms, retrospectives, etc.)
- Regularly collaborate with real people to maintain connection
- Balance AI efficiency with human creativity and empathy
Ready to put these insights into practice?
See our Safe Use Checklist for 4 simple principles to keep in mind every time you use AI – a quick reminder to stay sharp, critical, secure, and human.